Adventures in Aetherea Book 4 Dragon Lady   Genevieve of Camelot lay in her royal bower, sleeping the sleep of the just or the just plain give out, take your pick. The first was a lie; the second was much closer to the truth. You try and wait tables at a tavern that caters to the denizens of a place that seems to draw the dregs of divinity and worse, yes, ladies and gentlemen, even insurance salesmen.  Life was not all it should be for a queen, even a retired one.  Yes, fine, exiled, fired, kicked off the island, who’s telling this story? And just what is that noise? Her royal grumpiness flopped over in her sleep and snuggled her face into her pillow.  She inhaled the scent of lavender with an underlying hint of pepperoni.   She wrinkled her nose slightly and made a note to change the sheets tomorrow.   One of the perks of living alone was that you could eat in bed while watching B-movies.  The downside was something she didn’t want to think about right now.  There it was again, a scratching noise.  Who or what the hell was that?   Her bedroom was at the back of her small two-story cottage, on the second floor at that.  The scratch came again, a low ripping sound against her screens she’d spent all summer putting up not five years ago. There were no trees near her windows, so that killed that comforting explanation.  As a child of her times, she refused to have trees against her home it made it less defendable.   You defended a keep much easier with a clear view of your target, they had no cover from which to shoot arrows, or now days, Uzis at you.  Her father’s voice came down through the years.  ‘Have nothing between yourself and your enemy, that is rule number one.   Make them shoot while you looking in your eye.  At least you died knowing who your assassins were.’ Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. It was probably one of the >mad cows’; the herd of freaky friends would think nothing of coming here to torment her in her slumber.   Katia liked doing things to people as they slept, cheese crackers and shaving cream in the hair was not something you wished to wake up to at all.   “Well, let’s see about this.”  Gen snickered and shoved her feet into her dragon slippers.   She shuffled over to the window and paused with her hands on the curtain.  An idea occurred to her, a wonderfully horrible awful idea.  With her best mad scientist laugh, she whirled and ran into the bathroom returning with the plastic trash basket full of cold water.   Her windows were open, with screens to keep out mosquitoes or worse, fairies, pah, the little beasts would infest a house like roaches, impossible to get rid of without a major magical cleansing.  Those things cost an arm and a leg, and here in Aetherea, that could mean the actual limbs. She wedged the bucket between her knees and yanked on the cord to open the curtains.  “You better hope that water trick don’t melt bitches, Charise!” She yelled as a battle cry.  She tossed the water straight at the screen, then let out a blood-curdling yell as the face registered in her brain.   “Holy shit on toast!”   She squeaked. The water hit its target dead on, rivulets of ice cold liquid flowed down into its nasal cavities.   Smoke was the inevitable reaction, and where there is smoke there isB .  No, not fire.  The large triangular head reared back, she saw its eyes squeeze shut.  It took a breath, then another and another.  It was at least forty feet long, including the tail, it stood there, holding back a sneeze.  Dark hunter green scales covered its upper body, fading to a lighter moss green on the belly and throat. Its eyes were light, green orbs that glowed like traffic lights, when they were open that is, right now they were squinted in effort.   Gen stood frozen to the spot watching the slits in its nose pinching closed then coming wide open.   It was a bloody dragon, staring her in the face, looking in her window. A peeping dragon, perverted bastard.   The synapses in her brain fired, helped along by red-hot rage flowing through her veins.  “Oy! Lizard lips! What the hell do you mean looking in my window?  Go away and find you a lady lizard to love on, go on, shoo!”   She made motions with her hands. There was a low growl emanating from the dragon’s mouth, at least she thought so, then it took a deeper breath.  “Achoo!”  A gale wind force hit Gen broadside knocking her back onto the bed.  She just rolled, flipping arse over teakettle to land in a heap against the far wall.   “Shit.”  She breathed, and then looked down at her Packer’s jersey.  “Ew! You have desecrated the Favre! You must die, reptile, and it shall be a long and painful demise.  Dragon snot on my jersey, this was signed too!”  She shuddered for a minute before picking up her sword to do battle.  They didn’t call her the warrior queen for nothing.  With her blade held aloft, she took a running leap up on the bed, using the impetus to flip into the air.   She landed in front of the window, her legs braced apart ready to skewer him.   “Come on brimstone breath, let’s dance.”  She hissed. In answer the screen erupted inward, a long-taloned fore claw slid into the room and grasped her around the waist.  Gen beat at the scales with the hilt of her sword, this did not work, so she tried the point but to no avail. “Son of a bitch!”  She screeched, using her teeth when all else failed.  All that netted her was the taste of dragon in her mouth, not pleasant at all.  “Blah, you don’t taste like chicken, more like the ass of a chicken.”  She spat then grunted when her head banged into the window frame. The dragon hissed and turned her sideways, forcing her to bend or break.  She bent, having no choice in the matter.  “You will pay for this effrontery.”  She grumbled when he brought her up to face him.  With a sly smile, and the damned thing had a smile as wide as she was tall, it plucked the sword from her numb hands and tossed it back through the open window. Gen folded her arms and glared, refusing to show the fear that was turning her blood to ice.  “If you don’t put me down, I’llB.”   Whatever her insult would have been, nobody knew because he curled her closer to his body and took flight with one strong leap.   She screamed, covering her eyes with her hands. The wind whipped at her hair, tossing it around her head and into the dragon’s eyes.  He grunted and tucked it beneath his talons to keep it down.   He was warm, that was the most surprising thing to her.  She’d never touched a live dragon, not with her bare hands.  She’d always worn her gauntlets, at least until they were dead.  And everyone knew the dead were cold.  Dragon fire was hot though, so it was only logical the dragon would be too.  She was glad of this fact now that they were flying; she risked a glance down and gasped.  They were flying at least five hundred feet above the trees. She began to pray.   Charise was a bloody goddess, where the feck was she?  “I’ll be good, just don’t let him eat me or drop me or whatever the hell else he’s thinking of doing.”   There was nothing to hold onto either, the scales overlapped each other so tightly it was like glass beneath her hands and knees, warm glass, or marble.  She waffled on her description for no other reason to provide a distraction from flying in the air without benefit of a first class seat, the suck ass movie and liquor to dull her senses to the fact that she was a mile high in the sky.  Queens didn’t fly, damn it! Even that silly monarch from the modern England had not one but two boats named after her ass.  That meant water, not air. Her ass could float if the boat sank, but be damned if she’d sprout wings and fly if the plane suddenly disappeared.  Or, decided it was time to do a flip in the air. “Don’t you dare, you idiot!”   She screamed. He chuckled, the dragon laughed at her and did three flips in the air just for spite.  Fine, she thought, when she caught her breath and got her toes out from under her tonsils.  Dragon kebabs were on the menu.  Cooking with Gen, yep, bam this, you bastard.  She snarled and pulled the small flap of skin on the side of his jaw.  “Down, dumbass!”  She growled, craning her neck to look into his eye.  He opened his mouth and she jerked her hands away to cover her head in case he decided to chomp her head off, sort of an in flight snack or something.  Instead, he tilted his head back and let loose a plume of fire into the night sky. Her mouth fell open in shock.  “Wow.”  She finally whispered.               The dragon wiggled its brows at her and then dived down at an alarming pace.  “Oh shit!”  She repeated in a very high pitched voice.  The long ascent for the loop de loops had gotten them both wet, the mists drenched Gen’s hair, plastering it to her scalp, and her jersey clung to her shivering frame.  She didn’t care right now; she only wanted the ground beneath her feet.  They swooped over the trees, so close that his back legs brushed the tops with a swishing noise.  Their passing disturbed the birds leaving a trail of feathers and squawks in their wake.  The dragon spread his wings out straight.  They slowed to a glide, gradually descending toward a meadow below.    He put down his back feet and gracefully landed without so much as a bump.  “Let me down, now! Right now, you huge fat bastid!”  She yelled, pummeling him with her fists, which had no effect other than making him rumble with laughter once more. Finally, he set her down and took a few steps back all the better to lean down for a closer look.   For long moments, he just stared at her, his breath drying the water off her body.  She folded her arms and shivered, squeaking when the large front foot curled around her back bringing her closer.  He shifted, bringing her in contact with his long neck right at the crook of his shoulder haunch.  Blessed warmth suffused her once more.  With a watery sigh, she closed her eyes.  Kidnapped by a damned dragon, the girls would never let her live it down, not to mention that blasted Merlin.   She hoped that wizard knew this was all his fault, if not, she’d be happy to tell him, if she got out of this alive.